"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Senate Republicans have blocked a
Democratic bill that would enrich health, education and job-training
programs for the nation's 22 million veterans.Helping veterans is widely popular among lawmakers, especially with
this fall's congressional elections approaching. The sweeping $21
billion measure would do everything from letting more veterans get
in-state college tuition to providing fertility treatments for wounded
troops.

Republicans complained that the bill was too expensive. And they were
upset that Majority Leader Harry Reid prevented a vote on a GOP
amendment cutting the bill and adding sanctions against Iran for its
nuclear program.

The Senate derailed the legislation on a 56-41 procedural vote.
Fifty-six senators voted to keep the bill alive, but supporters needed
60 votes to prevail.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A Republican-led bill designed to "save American workers" would cause
1 million workers to lose their health care coverage and increase the
deficit by $74 billion, according to Congress' official scorekeeper.

The legislation,
offered by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) and 208 co-sponsors as a tweak to
Obamacare, would change the definition of a full-time work week under
the health care law from 30 hours per week to 40 hours. The aim was to
mitigate the effect of the law's employer mandate, which says businesses
with 50 or more workers must offer insurance to full-time employees.An analysis of the bill, released Tuesday by the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, found that
it would cause 1 million people to lose their employer-based insurance
coverage. The report projected that more than 500,000 of them would end
up getting coverage through Medicaid, the Children's Health Care Program
or the Obamacare exchanges. The rest, CBO and JCT said, would become
uninsured.The legislation would also lower the amount the federal government
collects in penalties from businesses who don't abide by the employer
mandate. As a result, the report found, the deficit would go up by $74
billion over 10 years.Titled the "Save American Workers Act," the bill cleared the House
Ways & Means Committee on a party line vote earlier this month and
was slated for a full House vote perhaps as early as next week. Of the
bill's 208 cosponsors, seven are Democrats.The CBO findings are problematic for Republicans in part because
they've raised hell about insurance cancellations and market disruptions
due to Obamacare's minimum coverage standards and other provisions.A spokesman for Young didn't immediately respond to a request for comment."[A]s the administration continues to stumble through implementation
of the law, many Americans are still confused with how this sweeping law
will work and what its impact will be," the congressman said upon
introducing his bill. "Repealing this redefinition [of 'full time
employment'] and restoring it to the historical norm ensures this bill
not only protects working poor and middle class employees, it also
ensures that laws governing employment are consistent."The reality, it appears, is less simple."I think this shows that [the Republicans'] repeal agenda will
actually hurt or destroy jobs, and make it harder for people to get
health insurance," said Alex Nguyen, a spokesman for Democrats on the
Ways & Means Committee.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

President George W. Bush’s former chief strategist Matthew Dowd on Sunday likened Christians in Arizona who are using religion to discriminate against LGBT people to Islamic terrorists.
Last week, Arizona’s legislature passed a bill that would allow business owners to assert religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers.

On Sunday, ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked Dowd to predict if Gov. Jan Brewer (R) would sign the bill into law.
“I think, in the end, Gov. Brewer is probably going to veto this because it seems like an easy veto for her to do because of everything that’s going in the business economy there,” Dowd explained.
“This is one of those problems when people use religion as a way to sort of enforce discriminatory practices,” he continued.

“People used religion back in the 1860s when they defended slavery. They used religion to defend slavery.”
“We’ve used religion to go to war. People have criticized Islam because they use religion to fight people and kill people. This is the problem with that [bill].”............

Friday, February 21, 2014

As ExxonMobil’s CEO, it’s Rex Tillerson’s job to promote the
hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent oil and gas boom, and fight
regulatory oversight. The oil company is the biggest natural gas
producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial drilling technology
to extract it. The exception is when Tillerson’s $5 million property value might be
harmed. Tillerson has joined a lawsuit that cites fracking’s
consequences in order to block the construction of a 160-foot water
tower next to his and his wife’s Texas home. The Wall Street Journal
reports the tower would supply water to a nearby fracking site, and the
plaintiffs argue the project would cause too much noise and traffic
from hauling the water from the tower to the drilling site. The water
tower, owned by Cross Timbers Water Supply Corporation, “will sell water
to oil and gas explorers for fracing [sic] shale formations leading to
traffic with heavy trucks on FM 407, creating a noise nuisance and
traffic hazards,” the suit says.Though Tillerson’s name is on the lawsuit, a lawyer representing him
said his concern is about the devaluation of his property, not fracking
specifically. When he is acting as Exxon CEO, not a homeowner, Tillerson has lashed
out at fracking critics and proponents of regulation. “This type of
dysfunctional regulation is holding back the American economic recovery,
growth, and global competitiveness,” he said in 2012. Natural gas production “is an old technology just being applied, integrated with some new technologies,” he said in another interview. “So the risks are very manageable.”In shale regions, less wealthy residents have protested fracking
development for impacts more consequential than noise, including water contamination and cancer risk. Exxon’s oil and gas operations and the resulting spills not only sinks property values, but the spills have leveled homes and destroyed regions.Exxon, which pays Tillerson a total $40.3 million, is staying out of the legal tangle. A spokesperson told the WSJ it “has no involvement in the legal matter.”

As attorney general, Abbott pledged as part of his
conservative agenda to fight sexual predators who target young girls.
Nugent took the campaign stage with Abbott this week where the attorney
general touted him as a “fighter for freedom” because of his appeal to
gun-rights voters in Texas. But then there’s this, Nugent’s 1981 paean
to sex with underage girls entitled Jailbait.

"Jailbait"
contains lyrics like these: "Well I don’t care if you’re just thirteen/
You look too good to be true/ I just know that you’re probably clean/
There’s one lil’ thing I got to do to you."Nugent admitted to having affairs with underage girls in a 1998 "Behind the Music" documentary.Abbott deflected CNN's questions
Thursday when asked if he felt it appropriate to campaign with someone
who had a history of inflammatory remarks like Nugent, who has also
called President Barack Obama a "subhuman mongrel." The gun rights activist later apologized, but not to the President.Abbott's gubernatorial campaign hadn't responded to Slater's request as of Friday afternoon.

How can people be so heartlessHow can people be so cruelEasy to be hard, easy to be cold

How can people have no feelingsHow can they ignore their friendsEasy to be proud, easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangersWho care about evil and social injusticeDo you only care about bleeding crowdHow about a needing friend, I need a friend

How can people be so heartlessYou know I'm hung up on youEasy to be proud, easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangersWho care about evil and social injusticeDo you only care about bleeding crowdHow about a needing friend, we all need a friend

How can people be so heartlessHow can people be so cruelEasy to be proud, easy to say noEasy to be cold, easy to say noCome, on, easy to give in, easy to say noEasy to be cold, easy to say noMuch too easy to say no

ONE was a sex slave forced into abuse and another saw starvation deaths on a daily basis.

Then there’s the woman who spent nine years in a brutal prison camp for the seemingly harmless crime of gossiping.

Even a prison official who
was forced to witness the executions was left so traumatised he can
still see blood spatters and bodies heaped on the ground.

This is the North Korea you probably never knew existed.

For the first time footage of
these damning testimonies provides a shocking insight into how North
Korea treats some of its citizens, including those sent to repressive
prison camps 15 and 16, known as Yodok and Kwanliso.

The testimonies from a former
prison guard, a prison detainee, an army officer and a trafficked sex
worker reveal what life’s really like inside the world’s most secretive
nation.

Their claims are so damning they were provided to the UN as part of its inquiry into North Korea’s human rights abuses.

The inquiry, headed by former supreme court judge Michael Kirby, will release its final report tomorrow.

Amnesty International, which
provided information to the inquiry on a wide variety of human rights
violations amounting to crimes against humanity, has released the
footage of those who testified before the inquiry.

Among those are a former
prison guard, who spoke to exclusively to Amnesty about how officials
would rape women from the camp and then kill them, as well as detailing
the methods used for executing prisoners.

The prison official, who’s
name is not given, said detainees were forced to walk between 12 to 14
miles (19-20 kms) to get to the fields where they are expected to plough
and work until midnight.

But it is the executions which stick in his mind, with whole generations of families “exterminated” using two main methods.

“One is getting the prisoner to dig their own grave,” he said.

“Afterwards, the prisoner is
made to stand before the grave. The prisoner stands there, facing his
grave, and is unable to see what’s behind him. The hammer is small. It’s
a short metal hammer.”

But it gets worse.

“The second method is like this,” he reveals.

“The prisoner comes into the
office and is told to take a seat. Behind the screen, there are two
people on standby. Always. They are holding on to what looked to me like
a rubber rope. It’s a metre long, just about. If you strike someone
with it, it will wrap around their neck. Then you kill them by pulling
the rope.”

Kim Young Soon knows all too
well what life is like inside the notorious camps, having spent nine
years in Yodok prison along with her parents and children who all died
there, for gossiping about an affair her friend had with Kim Jong Il.

Kim said her family was simply guilty by association and was sent to the camp without ever knowing the charge.

“No words would help you to understand what this place is like,” she said.

“From sunrise to sunset, you
work. There are no set working hours. You get up at 3:30am to report for
work at 4:30am and then you work until dark.”

Her elderly parents, daughter
and three sons all ended up there. They never got the chance to leave
or learn about why they were there.

“When my parents starved to death, I didn’t have coffins for them,” she said.

“I wrapped their bodies with
straw carried them on my back and went to bury them myself. And the
children …. I lost all my family.”

Another former prison and
trafficked sex worker Jihyum Park also revealed how women were used for
sex with rape, abuse and forced terminations all occurring regularly.

Park Ji-hyun was sold to a Chinese farmer and was sent to a labour camp for trying to escape.

“They would force abortion
after the pregnancy test. Pregnant women get sent to labour camps to
carry loads up and down the hills which cause miscarriages.”

Park also detailed the
starvation within the camps and how people were so hungry they would eat
anything, including beans and maize kernels stuck in animal dung.

But it’s the testimony from
former military captain Joo-Il Kim that provides the most shocking
details, revealing how a shortage of food and starvation remains the
biggest problem facing the army.

He goes on to tell in graphic
detail how it feels to watch a starving person die, how they are so
malnourished and swollen nothing can be done to save them and how the
executions he witnessed haunt him the most.

“The first public execution I had to witness happened to be my classmate’s brother-in-law,” he said.

“The first bullet hits the
head strap, and the brain and blood splatters. People scream in horror
at this sight. The crowd roars. It is so gruesome, you instinctively
close your eyes or turn your head away on subsequent gun shots. When all
the gunshots have died down, you look and the body is heaped onto the
ground.”

All four North Koreans, who
have since escaped the country, said they hoped their stories would
bring about change and that it was time the international community knew
the reality of what took place.

The testimonies follow the
release of satellite images showing the ongoing development of two of
North Korea’s largest political prison camps — kwanliso 15 and 16 in
December last year.

Amnesty International
published the images and analysis was shared with the Commission of
Inquiry, which will publish its final report in Geneva at midnight.

Friday, February 14, 2014

This week, the Kansas House of Representatives passed House Bill 2453, "An act concerning religious freedoms with respect to marriage." Despite
its name, this bill isn't about religious freedom. It's about creating
new special rights (yes, those dreaded special rights) for people with
anti-gay views.The bill would protect the ability of any individual, government
agency, or "religious entity" (which includes a business operated in
accordance with its owner's religious views) to refuse service based on
sincere religious beliefs about sex or gender, and to refuse to
recognize any marriage or similar arrangement for those reasons — even
if such service would otherwise be required under Kansas law.In other words, a special new right to discriminate on a particular basis.Republicans aren't normally keen on creating special workplace rights
for public employees, but this bill would let government workers refuse to do their jobs
if doing so conflicted with such sincere religious views. Let's say you
work for the Kansas Department for Children and Families and you don't
want to process a foster care application from a same-sex couple, even
though that's within the agency's policy. Or you're a police officer and
you don't want to respond to a domestic abuse complaint from a same-sex
couple. If this bill becomes law, that will become your right.The bill even creates a special new employee right for anti-gay
people working in the private sector. Let's say you work for a national
chain supermarket with a policy against discriminating on the basis of
sexual orientation, and you're asked to make a cake for a gay wedding.
Now, you can refuse, and your private employer "shall either promptly provide another employee to provide such service, or shall otherwise ensure that the requested service is provided, if it can be done without undue hardship to the employer."Social conservatives have a reason for seeking these special
privileges: the America they knew is falling away from them, and that
change is mostly about social attitudes, not law. Legal freedom won't be
enough to protect people's ability to be loudly and proudly anti-gay;
the government will have to create special rules barring private action
against the anti-gay.This bill comes from the same place
as the complaints that Phil Robertson's "religious freedom" or "freedom
of speech" were infringed when his comments on homosexuality were
criticized. Of course, nobody was infringing on Phil Robertson's legal
rights — there's no right to your own A&E show, there's no right not
to be criticized for your religious views, and (so far) there's no
right to refuse to do your job because you think homosexual behavior is
wrong.Maybe in Kansas, there soon will be. Whatever that is, it won't be an advance for religious freedom.

Oslo — Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik threatened to go on
hunger strike for better video games and other perks to alleviate his
"torture"-like prison conditions, in a letter received by AFP Friday.The
right-wing extremist -- who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting
rampage on July 22, 2011 -- enclosed a typed list of 12 demands sent to
prison authorities in November.He described as "torture" the
conditions in two prisons -- Ila near Oslo and Skien in southeast Norway
-- where he is serving out a 21-year sentence.The demands
include better conditions for his daily walk and the right to
communicate more freely with the outside world, which he argues are in
line with European rights legislation.He also demanded the
replacement of a PlayStation 2 games console for a more recent PS3 "with
access to more adult games that I get to choose myself" as well as a
sofa or armchair instead of a "painful" chair."Other inmates have
access to adult games while I only have the right to play less
interesting kids games. One example is "Rayman Revolution", a game aimed
at three year olds," wrote the 35-year-old convicted killer.Held
apart from other prisoners since 2011 for security reasons, Breivik
wrote that he has behaved in an "exemplary fashion" in prison, arguing
that he has the right to a wider "selection of activities" than other
inmates to compensate for his strict isolation.Breivik also wants
his standard weekly allowance of 300 kroner ($49, 36 euros) to be
doubled, particularly to cover his postal charges for written
correspondence.His mail is monitored and censored by prison
authorities which, he complained, considerably restricts and slows down
his contact with the outside world.- 'In hell' -Other
demands include an end to daily physical searches at Ila prison, and
access to a PC rather than to a "worthless typewriter with technology
dating back to 1873"."You've put me in hell ... and I won't
manage to survive that long. You are killing me," he wrote to prison
authorities in November, threatening a hunger strike and further
right-wing extremist violence."If I die, all of Europe's
right-wing extremists will know exactly who it was that tortured me to
death ... That could have consequences for certain individuals in the
short term but also when Norway is once again ruled by a facist regime
in 13 to 40 years from now," he warned, calling himself a "political
prisoner".On July 22, 2011, Breivik killed eight people in a bomb
attack outside a government building in the capital Oslo and later
killed a further 69, most of them teenagers, when he opened fire at a
Labour Youth camp on the island of Utoeya.In the letter dated
January 29 he said that since there has not been any real improvement in
his prison conditions, a hunger strike would be "one of the only"
options at his disposal."The hunger strike won't end until the
Minister of Justice (Anders) Anundsen and the head of the KDI (the
Norwegian Correctional Services) stop treating me worse than an animal,"
he said, adding that he would "soon" make public the starting date of
his protest action.Karl Hillesland, acting director of the prison where is being held, told AFP that no one is currently on hunger strike there.- 'Human rights activist -In
his letter Breivik attacks the Scandinvaian media which he accuses of
complicity with the "torture" he is subjected to by not reporting his
complaints.He also refers to himself as a "human rights activist":"You
seem to think that we -- all human rights activists who fight for one
fundamental human right (cultural self-determination) -- ... are Nazi
monsters who should be pushed into suicide," he wrote.Breivik's lawyers announced in January 2013 that their client had lodged a complaint over alleged "aggravated torture"."These
conditions have barely improved since," his lawyer Tord Jordet said
Thursday, adding that he was nonetheless "keeping his spirits up."Norwegian police told AFP that a response to that year-old complaint is due next week.

At its Winter Meeting in late January, the Republican National
Committee, the primary organizing and fundraising arm of the Republican
Party, passed a series of resolutions, including one endorsing a “pro-life strategy” and another calling on members of Congress and Governors to “explain…burdensome federal regulations” to the public. But in a surprising move for a party that is struggling to restore its appeal to moderate voters, the RNC also endorsed a fringe, right-wing campaign by some local officials to seize federal lands, turn them over to Western states, and further expand mining and drilling. The RNC resolved that:

[It] calls upon the federal government to honor to all
willing western states the same statehood promise to transfer title to
the public lands that it honored with all states east of Colorado; and
…calls upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert
their utmost power and influence to urge the imminent transfer of public
lands to all willing western states for the benefit of these western
states and for the nation as a whole.

The RNC’s resolution follows the re-emergence of the so-called
“Sagebrush Rebellion” of the late 1970s that swept the western United
States in a wave of anti-government fervor. Today, a small group of
local officials and state legislators are reviving this effort. In March
2012, for example, Governor Gary Herbert of Utah (R) signed a bill
demanding that the U.S. Congress turn federal public lands over to the
state by 2015, or the state will sue (legislators have appropriated $3 million of taxpayer money to fight this legal battle). Similar efforts are underway in Idaho, New Mexico, Montana, and other states. Although the RNC’s resolution presents thoroughly debunked
constitutional arguments to justify the seizure of federal lands, the
real goal of the effort appears to be to dramatically expand drilling
and mining of fossil fuels on federal lands — but without federal
environmental protections and with profits going exclusively to
corporations and states, rather than federal taxpayers.There is ample evidence that control of fossil fuel reserves is the
real purpose of the land seizure movement. The RNC’s resolution, for
example, says that the federal government takes “10 times longer to
approve energy development permits than states” and that “that there is
more than $150 trillion in mineral value locked up in federally
controlled land.” Additionally, the website of the American Lands Council,
run by Utah state representative Ken Ivory (R), states explicitly on
its front page that “More oil than Saudi Arabia…and the rest of the
world combined locked up in federal lands — locking up jobs, economic
growth and opportunity not only in the west but throughout the nation!”These state efforts can be traced to corporate front groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has drafted model legislation for states eager to engage in such efforts. Additionally, Americans for Prosperity — funded by Koch money — has promoted the issue. Many legal scholars believes state land seizure movements are
constitutionally indefensible, because when states entered the Union,
the federal government assumed the rights over federal public lands.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Fourth Amendment of
the Constitution “gives Congress authority over federal property
generally, and the Supreme Court has described Congress’s power to
legislate under this Clause as ‘without limitation.’” And, Utah’s own
Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, said that Utah’s
legislation had “a high probability of being declared unconstitutional.”John Leshy, a legal scholar who was the Solicitor of the U.S.
Department of the Interior under President Clinton, noted that “Legally,
it’s a ridiculous claim. It would be thrown out in federal court in five seconds…[and] is all just about cranky, symbolic politics.”Notwithstanding the RNC’s endorsement, land seizure movements in the
West run counter to the feelings of Western voters. In fact, only 30 percent of respondents in a poll last year believed that “too much public land” was a serious problem. And 71 percent of Westerners oppose selling-off public lands to corporations for development.

It's hard to overstate the animosity that House GOP leaders feel for outside tea party groups these days.Republicans are bashing conservative activists as a bunch of cynical,
money-hungry opportunists after they attacked party leaders for surrendering on the debt limit Tuesday."$$$$$$$," emailed one senior Republican aide, who was granted anonymity to respond candidly to the conservative groups."Every once in a while," the aide said, "I see a Fire Boehner
sponsored tweet, think it's the Dems, notice it's one of them, and
realize they are working harder on behalf of liberals than anyone at the
[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]."

Within the House GOP, there was a mix of disappointment and
resignation, but no overt rebellion against Speaker John Boehner. But
outside tea party outfits seized on the fundraising opportunity at GOP
leaders' expense. "John Boehner must be replaced as Speaker of the
House," declared Matt Hoskins of the Senate Conservatives Fund in a
email asking for donations moments after the news broke. The Club For
Growth was outraged: "[W]e thought it was a joke. But it's not," said
Andy Roth, the group's top congressional lobbyist. "Something is very
wrong with House leadership, or with the Republican Party."The move was indeed a surrender for Republicans -- a fairlypredictable
one. So predictable that hard-right organizations have been
appropriately skeptical that they could win a debt limit fight, staying
largely silent throughout the debate, and refraining from proposing an
alternate way forward."A lot of the groups that are blasting the 'clean' debt limit
increase have never explained what – if anything – they would actually
support," said a second senior House Republican aide. "They're just
sending out emails with a big 'donate' button embedded in them."Boehner, seeing no better options, brought up a "clean" debt limit
bill on Tuesday and it passed with mostly Democratic votes. It's the
latest sign that although the tea party retains the ability to block new
economic and domestic initiatives, it has lost its ability to hold the basic functions of government hostage to conservative policy reforms.FreedomWorks called it "an all-time low for Speaker Boehner," pushing lawmakers to vote down the debt limit bill.The tug-of-war between conservative activists and the Republican
establishment has been increasingly acrimonious since the 2012
elections. GOP leaders believe these groups live in a fantasy world and
are endangering the party and its ability to move the needle to the
right. The groups say Republican leaders are cowards who refuse to take
risks to advance important conservative causes.Boehner publicly went after the tea party groups in December, saying
they had "lost all credibility" and were "using" House Republicans to
achieve their goals. He has privately urged his members not to let
outside entities call the shots.On that front, he achieved just enough support Tuesday to avert a
catastrophic debt default, but it's clear the tea party still carries
sway: just 28
Republicans voted for the bill; 199 voted against it -- including House
GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), whom the party tapped to respond to the president's State of the Union speech last month.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

In a new report
released on Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee concludes that
there was no way for the U.S. military to have responded in time to the
2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya to save the four Americans
killed that night. In doing so, the report debunks entirely a right-wing
myth that says the White House ordered the military not to intervene.For months after the attack that resulted in the death of U.S.
Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, conservative media was awash
in reports that on the night of the assault the Obama administration at
some point ordered the military not to take action that would have saved lives. This supposed “stand down order” led to a bevy of right-wing conspiracies about why the President and his administration had let the Americans die. “Who told the SEALs to stand down?” Rep. Steve King asked in Nov. 2012, in just one of many interviews with Republicans referring to the response to Benghazi as “worse than Watergate.”As Media Matters reports, Fox News cited reports of a stand-down order no fewer than 85 times during prime-time segments as of June 2013. As the new report — which the Republican majority of the committee authored –makes very clear
in its findings, however, no such order ever existed. “There was no
‘stand down’ order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who
sought to join the fight in Benghazi,” the report says, noting that the
military was not positioned to respond to the attack. “Given the military’s preparations on September 11, 2012, majority
members have not yet discerned any response alternatives that could have
likely changed the outcome of the Benghazi attack,” the report
concludes.This tracks with the repeated insistence from the White House and
Pentagon over the months that everything possible had been done once the
military assets in the region had mobilized. Then-Secretary of Defense
Leon Panetta, in the first Senate hearing on the military response, told
panel members that it’s impossible to prepare for every possible contingency when planning, accusing the panel of believing the military was akin to a “911 service.” While Senate Republicans chided Panetta at the time, it seems
Republicans on the HASC now agree with the secretary’s assessment.
“Majority members believe the regional and global force posture assumed
by the military on September 11, 2012 limited the response,” the report
continues. “Majority members recognize, of course, that it is impossible
for the Department of Defense to have adequate forces prepared to
respond immediately to every conceivable global contingency. Ensuring
that preparations exist for some likely possibilities is not to be
confused with the ability to anticipate all prospective circumstances,
especially in highly volatile regions.” The night of the attack, the United States had few military assets
within the region, the report reads, requiring the transport of soldiers
from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) stationed in Germany to Libya, a
trip that took several hours. Once there, the majority of the
reinforcements were given the order to remain in Tripoli to prevent a
possible attack on the U.S. Embassy itself, a distinct possibility in
the eyes of the Pentagon. The Pentagon also confirmed to the HASC that
there were no AC-130 gunships or armed drones within the region that
night, another topic of speculation from right-wing media outlets. The Democrats on the panel asked their Republican colleagues if they
could finally move on from Bengahzi. “This report, produced by House
Armed Services Committee Republicans, should finally bring an end to the
politicization of the heinous attacks on brave Americans in Benghazi,”
HASC Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-CA) and Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA),
the HASC Oversight and Investigations subcommittee’s ranking member,
said in a statement. “It is time to move forward, take the real
conclusions we have arrived at and establish how to best protect our
citizens around the globe. It is our hope that today’s report, which was
authored by Republicans, finally brings this attempt to manufactured
scandal to an end.”

Monday, February 10, 2014

The chemical spill in West Virginia has left thousands of people near Charleston with licorice-scented tap water that they’re afraid to use, despite the assurances of government and their water company.
West Virginia American Water promised customers a credit on their bills for the water homeowners needed to use to flush their pipes of contamination. But when many received their January bills, the credit was no where to be found, ThinkProgress reported.

And some bills showed hundreds of gallons of water use that homeowners claimed as impossible even with the flushing, given how circumspect their water use had been since the January 9 contamination of the Elk River with 10,000 gallons of Crude MCHM.
So, about a hundred people marched Saturday to the offices of West Virginia American Water to present the company with invoices for the water they’ve had to buy on the open market, along with their ancillary expenses.
Their invoices leave space to estimate the cost of lost wages and profits from when businesses closed, extra school costs, sewage bills from flushing pipes and the cost of additional taxes they’ll be forced to pay to manage the crisis, the West Virginia Gazette reported.

Brooke Drake, of Charleston, told the Gazette that she estimated that the water crisis has cost her $290, mostly in gas and hours lost picking up bottled water.
The water company asked customers to flush their pipes twice last month. During those flushes, customers were asked to leave their water on for 25 minutes, a process that WVAM said should use at most 500 gallons of water.

A 1000-gallon credit for homeowners and 2000-gallon credit should have appeared on bills this month, WVAM President Jeff McIntyre told ThinkProgress.
But several people approached ThinkProgress with their bills, showing no credit and inexplicably-increased water usage............

Saturday, February 08, 2014

TOKYO -- The world's leading economies will try to outfox tax dodgers by pooling information on offshore bank accounts.
Later this month in Australia, finance ministers and central bank
chiefs from the Group of 20 are expected to agree on such an
arrangement, which officials aim to have in place by the end of next
year. The proposal would create a common set of rules for
sharing information on bank accounts held by nonresidents in
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.
Financial institutions would input such data regularly into an online
network accessible to tax authorities, which would gain instant access
to account holders' names, account balances, transactions, and more.
The difficulty of tracking down the people behind offshore accounts has
hampered efforts to combat tax evasion. Existing bilateral tax
agreements have netted a number of hidden troves, including, in 2011,
some 2.5 billion yen (around $30 million) in assets in a Swiss bank,
part of the estate of a top Japanese executive of one of Europe's
premier fashion houses. But with information normally passed between
authorities on CD-ROMs, sometimes only once every two years, the hunt
has been slow. Until now, if Mrs. Watanabe had $1 million
stashed in a U.S. bank account, Japanese authorities would have been
hard-pressed to find it until the fictional housewife made a transfer.
With the new system, they would be able to see an up-to-date account
balance at the first sign of wrongdoing. China and other
emerging-market G-20 members are expected to take part in this
arrangement. So is the U.K., which would likely bring the Cayman Islands
and other overseas territories notorious as tax havens within the scope
of the information sharing. But the new rules would impose
an extra reporting burden on financial institutions. Moreover, some
countries may resist revealing every detail of nonresidents' bank
accounts. How well such a system would work would depend partly on how
many countries took part.

Friday, February 07, 2014

Allah has promised Israel to the Jews -- so says Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, a Muslim scholar living in Jordan, who declared on his Facebook page recently that "Palestine" doesn't exist.Blogger Elder of Ziyon translated Arab news sources that
this Saturday reported on Adwan's statements, in which he quotes the
Koran saying Allah assigned Israel to the Jews until the Day of
Judgement (Sura 5 Verse 21), and that Jews are the inheritors of Israel
(Sura 26 Verse 59)."I say to those who distort...the Koran: from where did you bring the
name Palestine, you liars, you accursed, when Allah has already named
it 'The Holy Land' and bequeathed it to the Children of Israel until the
Day of Judgment," argued Adwan. "There is no such thing as 'Palestine'
in the Koran.""Your demand for the Land of Israel is a falsehood and it constitutes
an attack on the Koran, on the Jews and their land. Therefore you won’t
succeed, and Allah will fail you and humiliate you, because Allah is
the one who will protect them (i.e. the Jews)," warns Adwan.The sheikh had more harsh words for the "Palestinians," calling them
"the killers of children, the elderly and women" in using them as human
shields in order to falsely accuse the Jews of targeting them. He
reports having seen the same tactic used by "Palestinians" against the
Jordanian army in the 1970s."This is their habit and custom, their viciousness, their having hearts of stones towards their children, and their lying to public opinion, in order to get its support," declared Adwan.Adwan has previously said his support for the Jewish people "comes from my
acknowledgment of their sovereignty on their land and my belief in the
Koran, which told us and emphasized this in many places, like His
(Allah’s) saying ”Oh People (i.e the Children of Israel), enter the Holy
Land which Allah has assigned unto you'" (Sura 5, Verse 21).The Jews are a peaceful people according to Adwan, who says "if they
are attacked, they defend themselves while causing as little damage to
the attackers as possible. It is an honor for them that Allah has chosen
them over the worlds – meaning over the people and the Jinns (spiritual
creatures) until the Day of Judgment. ...When Allah chose them, He
didn’t do so out of politeness, and He wasn’t unjust other peoples, it
is just that they (the Jews) deserved this.”Video (mostly in Hebrew) from Orot TV shows Adwan's 2012 visit to Tzfat, where he met with the city's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and expressed his support for Israel..........